My child, are you willing to wait?

Today I have a confession to make.

Are you ready for it?

I  hate to wait.

Seriously, if you were to take a hard look at your day, how much of your day has been spent waiting on something, or for someone? It could be something as simple as being put on hold on your phone as your call is being transfer to the right party, or waiting at a doctor's office, or even waiting for an event that you purchased tickets for, to finally arrive. If you were to take a good look at your day, you would see that our days are mostly spent on waiting for things to take place in our lives.
So why is it, that while we spend most of our lives waiting on things, that we can't be patient and wait on God when He asks us to?

Several years ago, I did a cardinal sin that no Christian in their right mind would want to do. It was almost as bad as praying for patience. (trust me, you don't want to do that either!) I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and ordered personalized license plates for my car.  I was in a place of my life, that I felt God kept speaking to me about a certain area in my life. And I wanted to put it in writing. I want the world to know, just exactly where I was with my walk with God. And I wanted people to know that I was listening and doing this action that was required of me at that time. I felt at that time it was a bold statement and I was ready to make a bold stand. Little did I realize how much I would come to dread that statement, yet be ever so thankful for that phase of my life. Yet just as much I gleaned from that, it is still a difficult task for me to do today. But I am after all, a work in process.

 Have I kept you waiting long enough to spark your curiosity to want to know what my license plates said? It was simply this.

W8T4GOD.

 Those seven characters changed my world and were my daily reminder of where I was at with my walk with God. From my friends asking me if I knew what I was doing in putting this message in writing, to people asking me what I was waiting on God for (and trust me, that message would change daily). So it would begin, me waiting on God, whatever it was that I was dealing with at that time, from me finding the right job, to seeing whether or not my marriage was going to be healed, to my children to be healed and forgive me for the pain of the divorce. And oh, how I wanted to mend things my way. I can't begin to tell you, how many times I tried to "fix the wrongs" in my life, only to have them be broken again. So with childlike faith, I would pick up the broken pieces of my life that I tried to fix cause I got tired of waiting, and offer them back up to my heavenly Father, then I would step back, so He could put the parts back together again.

I can remember early on with my walk with God, of the big lesson I would learn of waiting on Him. It during a time of my life, that God was healing me of my past. And He was clearing the cobwebs of my heart, where the pain of the past had been hidden, and lay dormant till I had allow God in. He was asking me to offer  the hurts to Him. He was asking me to trust Him. To wait on Him for healing of my heart so that He would in turn make things whole again. He wanted me to allow Him in so that I could be healed, and forgive those that hurt me. So that I may in turn share of His love to those that cause me harm. So imagination my surprise when I was given a word, that God was going to heal my relationship with my earthly Father.

You see, after the late term abortion I had (see Peter's story below), I met and moved in with my boyfriend. It wasn't a move that I was proud of, but I was facing being homeless, and was in love, and wanted a man to love me back. So combine that, and the fact that my then boyfriend was quite a bit older than me, and that he didn't have a ounce of Hispanic blood in him (my father was fulled blooded Mexican, while my mother was half German, half Italian, my father wanted me to keep the Hispanic lineage going). My father disowned me for the last and final time.  So when I received word that God was going to heal my relationship with my father, it had been seven years since I last saw my father, or even talked to him. So what I started to do, was to do everything in MY being, help God along and to help make this come to pass. I made many attempts to contact my father, so the healing can begin, only to have failed misery. So there I was, more broken hearted than what I was before.  But you know, one of my strong traits is that I am a stubborn person. So after another 10 years of trying to "fix" this issue, I came to the end of myself, and told God I surrender. And not only did I surrender, but I really believe that that God wouldn't fixed this area of my life. While deep down inside me wanted to believe that God would and could fix it. So I stepped aside, waited, and watched. Wouldn't you know it, that is when God came in and worked His miracle. Little did I know about this "waiting" on God.

It was shortly after this surrendering, that I received word that my father wanted to see me. With a reluctant, heavy, and broken heart, I submitted to the meeting. And it was then, after waiting 10 years of receiving God's word, that my father told me "how sorry he was of how he treated me, and asked me to forgive him of the hurts he had cause me in my life." You see, little did I realize, while God was working on my father's heart, that he was also working on my heart. All along, while I was busy trying to make things right, God was busy working on my own heart. Preparing it, softening it, taking away my pride and self-righteousness that I been dealing with but didn't see. To be in a place to received the blessing, and to accept it with a broken and contrite heart.  I could finally say that part of my broken heart was healed. I had the peace of knowing that my father, truly did love me. It a short six months later that my father passed away.
See, God's timing is never late.

Just like Joseph in the Bible, whose brothers dumped him in a well, only for him then to be captured and imprisoned for a great part of his life. It took waiting on God not only to work on Joseph's heart (so he may be a place to forgive them) but God was working on his brothers as well. All the while strengthening Joseph in his many trials, so that God would be glorified in his life. 

Sometimes when God asks us to wait, He may chose to show us why. It may be to teach us to be in a place of simply learning how to trust Him. It may be that He needs to adjust our hearts. Whatever it is, I know it is for the greater good. Something that is not humanly possible for us to do on our own, without God in our lives and in our hearts. 

  In Romans 8:28 it says this "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

My prayer for you is if God is asking you to wait and be still right now in this time of your life, that you will embrace it with open arms, an open heart and mind.

For this I do know, the reason for us to wait on God is first and foremost, is to give God all the glory. For He is in the miracle business. He has been for quite a while from what I understand. Also, that the anticipation of knowing that at the end of the wait, will bring many great things. And you could almost bet it's going to be something that is going to take your breath away...